February Newsletter 2015

The word of the month is “Douzo”. Every morning there are a lot of mulberry leaves everywhere on our school campus. The mulberry tree has its leaves and now it looks barren. I can’t wait to see the new leaves coming in soon. Have you ever noticed that we have camellia plants in our school yard? We’ll be able to see pink, white, and yellow camellia flowers in full bloom soon. Let’s wait and see, it is sure to be exciting!
It was unfortunate, but it rained on us during our “Mochi Tsuki” event. This broke our 15 years straight of having the celebration outside. However, it turned out to be a great success. There were a lot of people all with smiling faces and shouts of joy coming from everywhere in the room. We would like to say thank you to all of the gracious people who donated supplies and all the volunteers and guests that came out to enjoy the event.

Let’s watch and learn more about the history and origin of Setsubun, by playing with the “Oni Mask” the students have made at school and also the special songs they have learned.
· Mid Class – Practice jump ropes with your record book.
· Older Class- Work on finger knitting by making their own mufflers
· All of the kids have been challenged. “Ganbare (Effort) book: (Jump ropes, monkey bar, the stickup, Horizontal bar, string end, hopping, tap spinning, and chopsticks.
· Learn about Girls Day through making your own Girl’s Day Princess dolls.
· “Hygiene week” learn to wash hands and gargle.

We will harvest the Daikon radishes. This year's daikon is very beautiful. They are white and grew nice and straight.
We used kitchen given to us by everyone to fertilize the soil.The soil is so rich that the earthworms show their face as I dig the ground.The Daikon radishes respond to the children singing “Ookikunare" everyday which means "get bigger"! The daikon radishes are 12 to 15 inches with leaves that are about 12 inches. It is organic and look very fresh. We will harvest our crop and put them out on the table. You are more than welcome to take it home. We would grately appreciate your kind donation.
It makes us happy to know that there will be a daikon dish during meal times at your house. By the way, your comments on how the daikon tasted would encourage us even more! Thank you.

Please write your convenient time on the calendar. which is next to the attendance sheet.
Also, please fill out the parent teacher conference form that have been handed out and put it in the box by the doorway.
We look forward to seeing you.

The children are happily showing me the long knitted yarn coming down the back of their hands! We are using the free time during the class to accomplish this, but the children are really into it!
They start knitting by making a "x" on their four left fingers. It is a very simple repetition but need a lot of patience.
This is good exercise for the fingertips, development of dexterity and will also give good stimulus to the brain. It has been incorporated in Japan from several years ago to prevent dementia. Would you like to try it? We will teach you!
Please check out our blog. We are updating our blog as the children complete their muffler.